


why are we so incomplete?

by heart_made_of_glass



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Sad Barry, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-18
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-08-23 02:48:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8310982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heart_made_of_glass/pseuds/heart_made_of_glass
Summary: Flashpoint changed more than Barry realized at first, and he's not okay with it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time writing anything on here, so feedback is very, very welcome!
> 
> Title from the song "Dust & Gold" by the band Arrows to Athens

One foot in front of the other.

Keep running.

_Don’t think._

Barry closed his eyes. Opened them. He couldn’t go down that road, he couldn’t let himself think about it all. He couldn’t reflect on all that had happened since leaving what Thawne had annoyingly dubbed ‘Flashpoint.’ He couldn’t spare a thought for Iris and Joe and what had gone wrong between them.

Sharp intake of breath.

Barry squeezed his eyes closed, tight, once again. Opened them a second time.

_Don’t think._

He had to stay focused. He had to keep running, just keep running, don’t do anything else. He couldn’t allow himself to think of Cisco, to think of work and the new pain in his side, Julian Albert. Couldn’t do it. Couldn’t do it. _Couldn’t do it._

He stopped running.

Barry sucked in a breath. Then another, and another. He hunched over, folded in on himself, hands on his knees, gasping for air. In. Out. In. Out. Scrunched his eyes closed. Opened them. Closed again. _Get ahold of yourself, Allen!_

Two more minutes of rapidly filling his lungs with air passed before Barry felt he could stand up straight without threat of falling over. He hadn’t been this out of breath since long before the particle accelerator exploded. Of course, he thought bitterly, his sudden inability to breathe normally had nothing to do with his speed.

It did, however, have everything to do with him. With what he had done.

Another deep inhale of breath. Enough, he thought. Don’t do that to yourself.

_Don’t think about it. Don’t think about any of it._

Barry shook himself. Scrubbed his hands over his face. Focus, Barry, focus. Get ready. _Go._

He started running again, even faster than before. He needed to not be alone anymore because, obviously, he couldn’t trust his mind when it was left on its own. It needed to not be on its own. He needed to not be on his own. He needed to talk to someone, someone whose life he hadn’t completely changed. Someone whose life he hadn’t destroyed.

He ran faster, and faster, and faster still. In minutes he was arriving in Star City, easily finding his way to Team Arrow’s latest hideout. He was fairly sure that’s where Felicity would be, and he absolutely had to talk to her. She was the only one, he was sure, that would be able to help make sense of this new reality he had created.

He sped into Team Arrow’s underground lair, and he doesn’t care if Oliver approves of the name or not; it is a lair. And, really, Oliver should be lucky that Barry doesn’t call the hideout the Arrow Cave. He’s paces away from the railing that separates Felicity’s home base from everything else when his feet falter from beneath him and he barely catches himself from crashing into said railing, because the person he had come to see—Miss Felicity Smoak herself—is not in the Green Arrow’s hideout, but he is. The Green Arrow, Oliver Queen. Standing right there.

“You’re late,” Oliver grunts, arms in their usual position of crossed over his chest, eyes not bothering to meet Barry’s.

Wait, what? Oliver had been waiting for him? But…he wasn’t supposed to even be in Star City. Or was he? Barry suppressed a sigh and blinked his eyes once, twice. He really had to get his head screwed on straight.

“Late for…” Barry trailed off, and it was obvious to anyone in the room—and it was only himself and Oliver—that Barry had absolutely no idea what it was that he was late for. As far as he knew, he didn’t have any plans with Oliver Queen, and, in their line of work, one couldn’t really _schedule_ plans with the Green Arrow.

Oliver turned away from him, letting loose a snort that sounded remarkably as if it was in disgust, which didn’t make much sense to Barry because what did Oliver have to be disgusted about? “I don’t have time to play games.” It wasn’t an answer to his unspoken question and Barry felt a twinge of annoyance reverberate down his spine. They were back to dodging straight answers? Barry watched as Oliver’s eyes drifted towards Felicity’s monitors, making sure that everything in Star City was all right. Satisfied that the city would survive a night without the Green Arrow, Oliver glanced back at Barry in a way that let Barry know that on Oliver’s list of priorities, Barry didn’t rank very high, if he even made the list at all. “Are we doing this or not?”

Barry opened his mouth. Closed it again. He had been close to asking what, exactly, it was that they were doing, but he had stopped himself at the last second. If earlier had proven anything to Barry it was that tonight was not the night to push Oliver’s buttons. The older man had thawed considerably towards Barry since the particle accelerator explosion and the nine-month long coma that came after, but, Barry knew, Oliver Queen could still be as cold as when he had first come back from Lian Yu. And, Barry thought as he reflected on Oliver’s more agitated than usual behavior, this was quite clearly a night where Oliver’s walls, all of them, were up and they were not going to come down.

Oliver began to venture further into Team Arrow’s underground lair, and Barry made to follow him, until he noticed where, exactly, it was that they were going. Oliver had been leading him towards the practice mats. Barry stopped in his tracks, looking from the padded mats on the floor to Oliver’s back—because Oliver _still_ hadn’t looked Barry in the eyes once since he had arrived—and back again for several beats before he decided that, Oliver’s avoidance or not, he was going to have to ask what was going on.

Risking life and limb, Barry reached out and placed a hand on Oliver’s shoulder to get the other man to stop walking. He released him the instant he felt Oliver’s muscles tense because while he does sometimes have the tendency to be reckless—and he is never going to admit that out loud, especially not in the presence of one Joe West—he is not stupid, and he absolutely does not have a death wish. “Oliver, what’s going on? Why are we going to the practice mats?”

Pivoting on his heel, Oliver turned to face Barry and, Barry noticed, with some chagrin, that he was finally looking Barry in the eye. The cold distance, the mistrust, he saw there brought him back to when they had first met, back to when Barry had been nothing but a kid following the trail of impossible things. But that couldn’t be right, because Barry had been fairly sure that they were long past those early days. They were friends, good friends, even, and Barry didn’t think there was anything that could happen—not even Laurel dying, which none of them were really over yet—that could revert Oliver back to his old ways.

Oliver looked Barry up and down once, twice. He didn’t appear to like whatever it was that he found on Barry’s face, and Barry could only guess that it resembled something frighteningly similar to confusion. “You’re not joking, are you? You really don’t know why you’re here?”

Barry shook his head, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “I don’t…you were waiting here and…” He scrubbed his hands over his face and felt his shoulders sag ever so slightly, finally cracking under the weight of everything that had happened since Flashpoint, with the weight of this new development in his and Oliver’s relationship. “Ollie, I just came to see Felicity.”

Barry watched something flash in Oliver’s eyes. Was that anger? Jealousy, maybe? Whatever it was, it made Oliver’s already hard expression look even more terrifying. “Felicity is with her boyfriend,” Oliver ground out and Barry was instantly confused, again. Felicity had a new boyfriend? He had been living in an alternate timeline so it was entirely possible that Felicity could have moved on from Oliver completely during that time. And, since it seemed that Star City was experiencing a rare night of peace, Felicity would be spending her night with her boyfriend and not here.

Barry nodded, turning away from Oliver. He was happy for Felicity, really he was. She deserved to be happy and if this new boyfriend made her so, then he wished them all the best. However, that didn’t change that he had now come to Star City for no reason, because there was no way that Barry could interrupt Felicity’s night in. His troubles weren’t important enough to disrupt her life.

“If you’re not here to train,” Oliver started and Barry jumped slightly. Oliver had thought that he had been here to train? And, seeing as how they were stood in front of the practice mats, they were obviously going to be training in hand-to-hand combat. Why would they be doing that? With his speed, it’s not really like Barry needed that kind of knowledge. “Then you should get out of here.”

Before Barry could ask anything else, Oliver was walking away. Though they were still in the lair together, Barry had quite obviously been dismissed, and he didn’t want to risk angering Oliver further. With a heavy sigh, Barry decided that it was time to head back to Central City and the mess he had made there.

oOo

There was an elephant on his chest, crushing him. He couldn’t breathe. He was breaking apart from the inside out. Some rational part of his brain whispered that this wasn’t supposed to be how it went. He was supposed to be feeling better, not worse. After all, that’s what happened when you came clean, when you stopped lying to people, when you told them the truth. You felt better. Right? Barry closed his eyes and shook his head minutely.

He did not feel better.

Telling them, the people that meant so much to him, that he had gone back in time, messed with their lives, had been the worst thing he had ever had to go through. Worse, even, then Thawne killing his mother. Worse than Zoom killing Henry right in front of him because, this time, he had no one to blame but himself. He was the reason his friends, his _family_ , had looked at him like that. Like they didn’t know who he was. Like he was a villain.

His elbows hit the desk, his shoulders sinking down until his face almost touched the pristinely white surface.

He was in the Cortex, alone, and he couldn’t help but feel as if this was appropriate. He didn’t deserve to be around anyone right now, maybe not ever again. Not after what he had done to them, and it didn’t matter if it had worked out, mostly, all right in the end. The Wests might be out, right now, bonding and getting back the relationship that Barry had taken from them, but it didn’t change anything.

It didn’t _fix_ anything.

Because as glad as he is that Iris is working on fixing her relationship with her father, he knows that it will never be enough to alleviate his guilt. Knows that nothing will ever be enough. He knows that he will always feel guilty over what he changed, knows that he will always be the only one who even recognizes those changes, will always have to bear the burden of that. Bear the burden of Dante, of his relationship with Cisco, which he’s not sure will ever completely recover. Doesn’t think any of them will ever completely recover.

Barry lets himself collapse back into the chair positioned directly behind him. The chair rolls a few inches, and he doesn’t bother to stop it. He can’t be bothered to do much of anything right now, except sit here, in STAR Labs, going over everything that he knows, for sure, that he’s changed since coming back from Flashpoint. He knows, on a rational level, that this isn’t helping anything, isn’t helping him to move past it. But he doesn’t think he’s ready for that, not yet. Doesn’t think he’s ready to say goodbye to the original timeline, his timeline, just yet.

Footsteps had him jumping slightly in his chair, causing the wheels to roll for another inch, before Barry planted both of his feet very firmly on the floor. He swiveled the chair around and made sure to sit up as straight as he could manage, double-checking his posture, because, as much as he loved her, he did not want Caitlin to see him in his new favorite position of hunched over. He didn’t need to worry her like that.

But, he realized, those weren’t Caitlin’s footfalls; this wasn’t the clacking of high heels that he heard coming his way. Frowning slightly, he stood up. As far as he knew, he and Caitlin were the only two left in the building. Of course, he reasoned, it was possible that someone might have come back to STAR, maybe having left something behind. He could guess that it wasn’t Iris—going back to the that whole no clacking heels thing—and he didn’t believe that it would be either Joe or Wally. Cisco, maybe?

Barry was already shaking his head at that. Of course it wouldn’t be Cisco. While they might have had a talk, worked some things out, Cisco had left STAR Labs the second he could, not wanting to be around Barry any longer than he had to. Not ready for that, yet. Maybe not ready for that ever again.

Barry clenched his fists, digging his nails into his palm. He had to stop circling back to that. He had other things to worry about at the moment. If it wasn’t Caitlin coming his way, and there was no way that Cisco would have come back to talk to him, who was it? He got his answer in the next second as Oliver Queen walked, as he did everything, confidently into the Cortex.

Oliver Queen. Again. Great.

Barry had found his thoughts drifting toward Oliver often since his run-in with the other man in Star City. And, having gone over their encounter detail by detail, he found himself more and more sure that, somehow, Flashpoint had affected Oliver, as well.

He couldn’t be sure, of course, not unless he asked Oliver, and the last time he had tried asking the older man something, it hadn’t gone exactly well. And there was the little fact that, if Barry really was going to ask Oliver if their relationship had changed in some way, he was going to need to explain what he had done, and he wasn’t sure he could go through that again.

But if Oliver had followed him back to Central—and he was fairly sure that Oliver had followed him and wasn’t just in town because he needed the Flash’s help; the monitors behind him would have alerted him to something of that nature—he might not have much choice.

“Oliver, what are you…” Oliver came towards him, stopping only when he was inches from him and Barry found the rest of his question dying in his throat. After the way Oliver had treated him in Star City, this was completely unexpected, and Barry found something he hadn’t felt in a while— _hope_ —coiling in his belly. Maybe he had misjudged the situation and Oliver really had just been in a bad mood; maybe his behavior had nothing to do with Flashpoint. Maybe he didn’t have to add Oliver to the ever-growing list of friends’ lives he had messed with.

But as he looked Oliver over—really looked at him, inch by inch—Barry felt the joy drain right out of him. He hadn’t been wrong before. Oliver’s eyes that were, once again, refusing to meet his own, held that same coldness, that same distance within them. His tense, rigid posture implied that he would have rather been anywhere else—maybe even back in Nanda Parbat—than stood in front of Barry. No, he hadn’t been wrong. This was more than just a poor mood. Flashpoint had affected Oliver in some way, affected Barry’s relationship with the older man. In this timeline, they clearly weren’t friends. Or, at least, not as close of friends as they had been in Barry’s timeline.

Barry felt something deep inside him shatter.

Oliver cleared his throat, wrenching Barry from his own mind with a vicious shake of his head, and he didn’t care if Oliver thought him crazy for it. He had, once again, broken the rule he had set for himself—to _not think about it_ —only, this time, the inevitable feeling of defeat had been doubly as crippling. He could get used to the new West family dynamic, could even get used to his new normal with Cisco, but the thought of having to break down Oliver’s walls all over again, of maybe not even getting that chance to, had Barry wanting to crawl under the covers of his bed, never to be seen from again.

After clearing his throat for the second time in another attempt to, once again, get Barry’s attention—and Barry really needed to stop getting lost in his mind so easily; it was kind of important for him to _focus_ right now, seeing as how he still didn’t even know why Oliver was in Central City—Oliver began talking. “I might have mentioned your weird behavior from earlier to Thea,” Was the explanation Barry got. “She… _suggested_ I come make sure that you’re all right.” The emphasis Oliver put on the word ‘suggested’ made Barry think that she had been slightly more instant than that, and, having met Thea before, he could readily believe that the younger Queen had all but—and might have _actually_ —shoved Oliver on his bike, forcing him to come check up on Barry.

Normally Barry would have been touched by that, touched by the knowledge that he had friends that cared enough about him to make the journey all the way from Star City to Central—even if Oliver’s little sister had forced him to make the trek—just to check up on him. However, at the moment, seeing Oliver, having to talk to him, to explain himself, was the last thing he wanted to do. “I’m fine, Oliver,” Barry reassured and, just to be sure that Oliver—who really should have been a detective, just so that he could get paid for all of his annoying accurate observations—believed him, he forced his lips into the biggest grin he could manage at the time being.

Oliver frowned. “That’s the fakest smile I’ve ever seen on you, Barry.” See? Annoyingly accurate observations. Barry tried to suppress the sigh that he felt building up in his chest but he couldn’t quite manage it, causing Oliver’s frown to deepen. “Barry…” Oliver was seemingly struggling with something, shifting awkwardly on his feet for several beats, before he came to some kind of conclusion in his head. “You can talk to me. If you need to.” It looked as if the words had cost Oliver something to say but, for once, Barry wasn’t concerned with deciphering Oliver’s true meaning in all that he had left unsaid.

Maybe it was that he still wasn’t over the decision he had made; maybe it was that he was already straddling the precipice, and he already had the urge to jump; maybe it was just that this was _Oliver_ , and Barry always felt as if he could talk to the older man, about anything, and truly be heard. Whatever the reason, before he could stop himself, before he could think twice about it, question if this was the right thing to do, Barry found himself telling Oliver everything about going back in time to save his mother, about the timeline that had created, and all about everything that had happened since coming back from said timeline.

The elephant that had been crushing his lungs, and had been there for so long that Barry had started to doubt if it would ever leave, was finally gone. The weight on his shoulders, he noticed, had also been lifted, and he felt momentarily confused. He hadn’t felt this way, felt this sense of relief, after telling the others about Flashpoint. But the confusion passed just as quickly as it had come on because, somewhere deep down in his bones, somehow without his fully understanding it, Barry knew that this was right. It was right that Oliver would be the one to stand in front of him now, to hear his story, and not _judge_ him for it—evident by the look on Oliver’s face, that had remained, mostly, the same, only softening slightly around the edges.

Barry had always felt a connection with Oliver, a deep one. And maybe their connection came from their nightly activities, and how they understood each other and the dangers they both faced in a way very few people could. Maybe it just came from them, from who they were, Barry and Oliver. Barry had never questioned it before, not really; had never tried to define it, either. He had always just accepted that it was there, had relished in it. Had found comfort in knowing that, whatever he faced, he could go to Oliver if he needed the other man, and Oliver could come to him. _Not anymore_ , his brain not-so-helpfully supplied because, while he might have felt as if a load had been lifted off of him, he still had to face the consequences of messing with time, and the consequence was that Barry had altered that relationship with Oliver, and he may not ever get the original back. That’s why, he acknowledged, this change to the timeline had affected him so differently than the other changes had. He didn’t want to lose that connection with Oliver, didn’t know what he would do without it.

“That’s why you were acting so strange before,” Oliver said after several minutes had passed without either man saying anything. It startled a, slightly maniac, laugh out of Barry, which he quickly tried to smother but the look on Oliver’s face—one of contempt at being laughed at—made it a lot harder than Barry thought it would be.

“I-I’m sorry,” He managed to choke out, and it took one or two more giggles—and no, he would never admit out loud that they were giggles—before he was able to get his laughing fit under control. “That just wasn’t what I was expecting you to say.”

“Well, what else am I supposed to say? I don’t really know how I’m supposed to feel about this, Barry.” If he hadn’t already stopped laughing, that would have sobered him up, quick. Oliver had a point: how was he supposed to feel about this? Barry had the sickening feeling that, once this had all, truly, sunk in, Oliver’s reaction was going to align with what Cisco’s had been, and Barry was going to lose the last person—minus Iris, who, bless her, had never looked at him differently—that was actually hearing him out, trying to understand it all.

“So,” Oliver began. Stopped. Cleared his throat for the third time since arriving at STAR Labs. Tried again. “The me in this other timeline,” Oliver paused, licked his lips—and no, of course Barry’s eyes didn’t follow the movement—then continued. “What was he like?”

Barry’s eyes shot up to lock on Oliver’s and, this time, Barry saw that Oliver’s eyes were actually meeting his. Barry had to take a second to pause this time, had to lick his suddenly too dry lips, as well, because the person he saw staring back at him? That was Oliver, _his_ Oliver. His eyes were no longer cold, no longer distant, but, now, they held the warmth that Barry had become so familiar with. It took his breath away and it was a struggle to get it back. What if Oliver wasn’t lost? What if he could get his Oliver back?

“We were close,” Barry offered up as an answer to Oliver’s question, his voice just an octave above a whisper. He wasn’t sure he could manage anything else right now. “We were really close, Ollie.”

Right before his eyes, Oliver shut down. His muscles, that had become quite lax since Barry’s confession, had tensed, once again. A wall had been hastily rebuilt, and Barry couldn’t understand why. What had just happened? Had it been something that he had said? Maybe Oliver, this Oliver, that is, couldn’t fathom being close to Barry.

Before he could apologize for whatever it was that he had said or maybe, possibly done, Oliver was talking. “You haven’t called me that in a long time,” His voice was even quieter than Barry’s had been. “And now…twice…” Oliver trailed off and shook his head several times, obviously dealing with some struggle within his mind.

Barry opened his mouth to try and cut in, to once again try to apologize because the absolute last thing he wanted to do was upset Oliver in some way. He clamped his mouth shut once more, very quickly. Oliver wasn’t finished yet. “We used to be close too, Barry, and then…” Barry waited as one minute passed, and then another, then another, until finally it became clear that Oliver wasn’t going to finish. Barry couldn’t stand for that.

He didn’t like pushing Oliver, he really didn’t, but the older man was important to him. Very important, for reasons he was starting to think he was going to need to examine more closely, at a later date. Oliver had given him a lifeline, something to focus on, something that could give him answers, because he wasn’t ready, would never be ready, to give up on Oliver Queen. Whatever had happened between them, Barry would find a way to fix it. He _had to_ find a way to fix it.

“And then, what?” He took a step forward, crowding into Oliver’s space, which is something he would normally never do. But he didn’t have a choice right now; he couldn’t let Oliver off the hook. Couldn’t let him get away. “What happened between us, Ollie?”

Another shutter from Oliver, only, this time, all of his walls were coming down. “You asked me to teach you to fight, so that if you ever lost your powers again, you’d be able to hold your own.” Barry gave a single nod of acknowledgement, because that made sense; with as many times as he had lost his abilities in the past—and he really didn’t want to dwell on the actual number of times that had happened—it could really only benefit him to have that kind of knowledge, for future reference. “And…one night, I had taken you down again, and…” Barry didn’t push Oliver this time. Oliver would tell him what had happened when he was ready, and, though he wasn’t usually the most patient person on the planet, Barry could wait for him to be ready. Would wait, as long as it took, because he was fighting for his relationship with Oliver. Would always fight for Oliver. “And I…I might have gotten caught up in the moment, and I…” Oliver didn’t look as if he could get the words, but that was all right. Barry didn’t need them. Oliver often didn’t say exactly what it was that he wanted to get across, and Barry had gotten quite good at reading the subtext. Good enough to be able to guess just what, exactly, had happened between them.

Oliver had kissed him. And, for whatever reason this-timeline Barry had, Barry hadn’t reacted well.

However, just because Barry could guess what had gone wrong between them, didn’t mean it didn’t shock him. Oliver had kissed him? That had been the absolute last thing he had expected the older man to have done, but Barry couldn’t deny that a thrill had gone down his spine at the realization. He guessed that he was going to have to examine his feelings for Oliver soon than he would have thought.

The good news was that it no longer mattered that the Barry Oliver had kissed hadn’t readily accepted this new development between them, because that Barry no longer existed. This Barry was here now, and he would admit to just about anyone—maybe not Joe, and only because that would be an awkward conversation he would not willingly put himself in—that the thought of kissing Oliver had him excited in a way he hadn’t been in a very long time.

Oliver was once again avoiding making eye contact with Barry—probably worried that the Barry in front of him would react similarly to his Barry—and that just _wouldn’t do_. Barry needed Oliver to look at him right now, so he did the only thing he could think of. He placed his hands on either side of Oliver’s face and made the older man look him in the eye. “Ollie,” Barry breathed and Barry had wanted to explain, explain all that he was feeling, explain how he was different than the Barry that Oliver had known, but he couldn’t get any of that out. Not now, when Oliver’s face was so close to his, when Oliver looked so vulnerable, so afraid of being rejected yet again, when his lips were so close to Barry’s, and looked so kissable.

He connected their lips.

Oliver tensed, and Barry almost released him because he wouldn’t do this, would never do this, if Oliver didn’t still want it, but before he could pull away, Oliver was responding.

And it was the most amazing thing that had ever happened to Barry.

They would have to talk about it. They would need to figure this whole thing out, figure out what it was, where it was going. Maybe they’d even need to discuss the excuse this-timeline Barry would have given—and Barry was sure that even an alternate version of himself would not have left Oliver without an excuse.

Yes, they’d have a lot to talk about, later. Right now, for the first time since Flashpoint, Barry was happy. Was at peace. Had found peace in Oliver, in this kiss, and he was going to drown in it, for as long as he could.

Would drown in Oliver for as long as the older man would have him.


End file.
